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President Rivlin to Accept New Israel Fund Honor

The New Israel Fund – which is widely seen as a subversive fund posing as a legitimate Zionist one – plans to bestow an honor upon President Reuven Rivlin on Thursday.

MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) asked Rivlin Sunday not to attend the event, and to decline the honor.

"President Rivlin, they are using you,” MK Smotrich said. “They are using you in order to receive government legitimization. They are using you in order to receive recognition."

"Do not assist an organization that strengthens the de-legitimization of the state of Israel,” he implored.

"Mr. President – an organization that passes information to the Goldstone Report and promotes it is not worthy of having you receive an honor from it and grant it recognition,” the rookie MK continued. “An organization that besmirches the soldiers of the IDF is not worthy of having you receive an honor from it and grant it recognition. An organization whose flagship groups are Adalah, Breaking the Silence, Betselem, Machsom Watch and Who Profits from the Occupation – is not worthy of having you receive an honor from it and grant it recognition. Forego the badge of shame.”

In February, Rivlin addressed Haaretz's Israel Democracy Conference, which was sponsored by the New Israel Fund (NIF), ignoring calls to boycott it. Representatives from Likud and Jewish Home, as well as Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett and Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, backed out of the event, upon learning the NIF was one of the sponsors.

“Organizations on the Left asked me to boycott the trip to the Jewish community in Hevron,” Rivlin said then. “Organizations on the Right are asking me to boycott the Haaretz conference on democracy. I did not cancel my visit to Hevron and I will not cancel my participation in the conference."

Grassroots Zionist student group Im Tirtzu group wrote to Rivlin at the time, urging him to reconsider, and reminding him that the NIF "supports organizations that delegitimize and tarnish Israel's reputation both home and abroad by accusing IDF soldiers of war crimes, creating international pressure on Israel, and attempting to change the Jewish-democratic character of the state from within."

"The NIF supports organizations seeking to prosecute soldiers for war crimes and it is therefore not appropriate that the president of the Jewish state open a conference sponsored by an organization hounding IDF soldiers," the group added, but to no avail.